Countdown customizers let you easily add a countdown — by day, hour, and then minute — to an event in your Expanded Text Ad. The countdown, which automatically updates as the event draws nearer, is eye-catching and gives potential customers greater incentive to click your ad.
For example, you can use a countdown to draw attention to a sale that is ending:
...or to promote an upcoming event:
Ads with countdowns only run while the countdown is relevant — they won't start running until a specific day and time that you set, and they'll stop running when the countdown timer expires.
The maximum character length of the countdown will vary depending on the language you select. This will affect how long the rest of your title part, path, or ad text can be. Take a look at this table to see the supported languages and the countdown character length for each.
When considering character length, keep in mind that your text will be determined to be too long if any possible countdown makes it go over the maximum character length for that piece of text. For example, the maximum character length for ad text is 80 characters. Watch what happens here:
You can also create a countdown manually, either by typing directly in the Create ad input boxes, by using a bulk upload spreadsheet, or by using Microsoft Advertising Editor.
To make sure you enter it correctly, let's look at the components of a countdown's syntax using this example:
{=COUNTDOWN("2018/02/17 00:00:00","en-us",3)}
Component | What you need to know |
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{ ... } | Mandatory. The entire countdown syntax must be within a pair of braces (also called curly brackets). |
=COUNTDOWN | Mandatory. This component determines whether the countdown is based on the ad viewer's local time zone or on your account's time zone. The possible values are "=COUNTDOWN" (the ad viewer's local time zone) or "=GLOBAL_COUNTDOWN" (your account's time zone). |
( ... ) |
Mandatory. The other components of the syntax must be within a pair of parentheses. Note: Individual components within the parentheses must be separated by commas. |
"2018/02/17 00:00:00" | This is the countdown end date and time (must be within a pair of double quotation marks). The date is mandatory, but the time is optional. If you do not specify the time, it will default to midnight (00:00:00) at the very beginning of the date you specified. |
"en-us" |
This is the language the countdown will appear in (must be within a pair of double quotation marks). For example, "3 days", "3 jours", or "3 Tage"). This component is only mandatory if you define how many days before the countdown end date/time you want the ad to start running (see next component). If you do not specify the language, it will default to English. Note: The maximum character length of the countdown will vary depending on the language you select. This will affect how long the rest of your title part, path, or ad text can be. Take a look at this table to see the supported languages and the countdown character length for each. |
3 | Optional. This is how many days before the countdown end date/time you want the ad to start running (the maximum is 999). If you do not specify the number of days, it will default to 5. |
With the countdown syntax, this ad's Title Part 2 would look like this when you create it: "Sale ends in {=COUNTDOWN("2018/02/17 00:00:00","en-us",3)}!".
After an ad's countdown ends, the ad will stop running but will retain the status Enabled. You can make the ad start running again by either:
Don't have all of the ads in an ad group use countdowns |
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Having a countdown in an Expanded Text Ad means that the ad won't start running until a certain date and time, and then will stop running a few days later. If all of the ads in an ad group use countdowns, it's easy to end up having no ads running for some periods of time. To ensure that you always have ads running, we recommend having at least one ad without a countdown in each ad group. |
Don't have multiple countdowns in a single ad if they have different date ranges |
It is possible to have more than one countdown in an ad. However, if they are based on different time ranges, the ad will only appear when the two time ranges overlap. We recommend avoiding this scenario. |
Choose the right time zone setting |
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